


here (by my side)

by EA_Lakambini



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), But seriously this is a ton of angst, Character Study, Crowley Has Self-Esteem Issues (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley internalizes everything, Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Forgive Me, Heavy Angst, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Introspection, M/M, POV Second Person, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Stream of Consciousness, Well it's a hopeful one anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28833567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EA_Lakambini/pseuds/EA_Lakambini
Summary: You did it before, did it a thousand times since, had to keep going through every damned disappointment, but somehow at this too-small table in this too-cluttered kitchen, it just seems too much, you’re falling apart, falling again,you’ve really done it this time.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 38





	here (by my side)

**Author's Note:**

> Props to Cat Guilford from the Ineffable Husbands FB group for giving the prompt that pushed me to finally post this; I was just writing out a scene involving an argument, but her suggestion to include that winged mug gave this story something to keep it grounded.
> 
> I know I said that I am all for domesticity and fluff in my South Downs stories, but every now and then I get hit by a wave of angst and unfortunately these two tend to get caught in the crossfire. Still, even in happy homes there are moments of strain that can seemingly come out of nowhere, and may not even be meant - and I wanted to see how these two would deal with something that can’t be solved with miracles, something so very human.
> 
> Many many thanks to the lovely [Raechem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raechem/pseuds/Raechem) for the encouraging look-over, to the supportive [burnttongueontea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnttongueontea/pseuds/burnttongueontea) for agreeing to a pact to post our stories tonight, and to the incomparable [NaroMoreau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaroMoreau/pseuds/NaroMoreau) for not only reading through the rough drafts but giving much needed suggestions for edits. You make my heart sing <3

*~*~*~*~*

It’s so quiet. It is just the two.

Breakfast in the cottage is usually a quiet affair. Both of you are still shaking off the shackles of sleep, reviving slowly over steaming cups and half-filled plates. You set out the eggs - poached for him, scrambled for you - and the sausages, lay out butter and jam and marmalade next to the toast, for him to choose as he likes. And he stands at the counter near the cupboard, bringing down the tin of loose-leaf tea for himself; he does not brew the coffee for you, lets you decide, claiming it is too complicated for such a bitter thing (and you try not to think that he might presume that about all of your choices because didn’t you choose to live in this cottage with him, didn’t you bring him all this way away, _didn’t you didn’t you didn’t you?_ ).

It is no different this morning, but you feel the shift from quiet to disquieting. You try to fill the silence of the room with the silence of memory, idly tracing the outlines of veins in your hands, and remembering a bus ride after the world didn’t end - he had taken your hand then, and you recall how you both were silent and fearful the whole way back to London, but his warm grip on your cold fingers was steady, and you felt the demonic pieces of you settle down under his touch.

It’s so quiet. It is hiding.

The silence is interrupted by the thud of mugs on the table.

Those mugs had actually started out as a joke. Well, it was a joke to you at first, but he was ever so pleased when he brought it out of the box, wasn’t he? (Wasn’t he so happy with you then?) He had actually caressed the porcelain wings, white as sunlit clouds and smooth as pearl; all gentle fingers and fascinated examination. _Of course it would suit you, angel._

That mug has held uncountable volumes of cocoa, accompanying him during long stretches of reading in the summer, warming his chilled hands in the winter. And one afternoon not too long ago, he had somehow found, in some little kiosk at the weekend market, a near identical mug but made all in black instead of white. Made with sturdy and practical ceramic, nothing like the bone-china delicateness of the original. Still, he had laughed and bought it on the spot, telling you that _now, my dear, this suits_ ** _us_** _best,_ and you had smiled, and later on in the shadows of the kitchen, you had kissed his hands as he cradled the ceramic wings dark as obsidian. _Keep it a secret, angel; something this nice wouldn’t suit a snake like me._

You look at him; there is no laughter now. Certainly he is not happy with you at this moment, and you ask yourself - fleetingly, like before, just out of sight but never out of mind - if he ever was. You look at yourself looking at him: you, all sharp edges and lean sinew and hair the color of rust; a jagged streak. Too cutting and too fast and too close. Obsidian. So dark, born of fire from below, fracturing into pieces that do nothing but pierce.

You stand up to reach for the kettle, which has just begun to whistle, but he answers that _it’s all right, I’m on it, there’s no need to go so_ **_fast_ ** _,_ and you try not to flinch. You are mostly successful, but of course he sees every move of your guilty bones, reads you like you are one of his first editions (like you are his, because you are, of course you are. Don’t try to deny it).

 _I’ve been trying to slow down, angel, but maybe we could meet halfway for a change,_ is what spills from your lips, and it’s wrong, all wrong, not what you meant to say at all. Still there it is now, a plea disguised as placation; but there are no disguises between you two, not here, and so his eyes lock on yours. You see him question. (Question what? All this, this skin and bones and mangled heart of you? You would not blame him.)

You take a step back and try to apologize but that is not what he wants - and it feels like these apologies were uttered before, a discordant harmony between the two of you, a record skipping before skidding to that painful halt.

It’s so quiet. It feels too calm. 

You know what comes next. It had to happen soon enough.

And he is raising his voice, asking what more he has to do to prove himself to you, if it matters how long the road was, so long as _it led to_ **_us_ ** _and_ **_now_ ** _and_ **_here_ ** . And you stop and wonder where _here_ is, if in a too-small table in a too-cluttered kitchen in a too-many-secrets cottage. Or in this emptiness where neither of you can no longer hide imperfections and differences from each other, or blame it on causes and ideologies that you both had long abandoned anyway. From the morning that floodwaters had covered the cries from the desert, or the afternoon that innocence had been crucified. 

You cannot help but simply look at him, even while you try to steady your heart, stiffen the struggling rib cage against the onslaught of truth and hurt (and right now is there any difference?). Gaze upon him, all gentle curves and hair as soft as dandelion fluff and the color of starstuff: a pillar of light. Unbreakable and unachievable and untouchable. Porcelain. So pure, born of fire from above, fearfully and wonderfully made.

You know that you couldn’t ever actually have him, no matter what side you were on or even if it was a side that you made for just the two of you. So you simply stay silent, let yourself take the knives of his words right to the hilt, take it all in because you know this is all you can have, all you deserve.

You hear a frustrated shout just barely bitten back - _what, Crowley, now you have nothing to say? -_ and then suddenly a sharp crack, as his angry hands push aside the mugs. And there they are now on the floor, smooth edges cracked and wings shattered, ruined into pieces and an absolute mess and you know they can’t be fixed, can’t ever be fixed, good for nothing now that they’ve fallen and it’s all broken. _Broken, broken._

It’s so quiet. It is the end.

_Dust shall you eat all the days of your life_ , She had said to you before. Dust and ashes from everything you touch, because it all burns and you are left in the destruction and still you must pick yourself up and crawl through the wreckage of your questions and your hopes. You did it before, did it a thousand times since, had to keep going through every damned disappointment, but somehow at this too-small table in this too-cluttered kitchen, it just seems too much, you’re falling apart, falling again, _you’ve really done it this time._

It’s the moment after the shot. You can look at how deep the wounds are, oh, how your hands come away bloody, because this is where _here_ is, and no one is coming to save you.

And then you hear shaky breaths, wet and gasping with tears, and he reaches out to you, psalms of _I’m sorry_ and _forgive me,_ falling from angelic lips, pushing away the heavy silence, the fog surrounding you. Over the ceramic wreckage he closes the distance between the two of you, six steps and six thousand years, and you know, you _know,_ that this is still something that can be saved, because that is what you both _do,_ always have done and will always return to.

And it’s the moment after the shot, again, but now you feel the touch of him holding you to stop the bleeding, and this is where _here_ is now.

You take his shaking hands in yours, press a kiss to the soft palms.

 _Hey,_ you whisper into those blessed hands, promises murmured into life lines (starting apart but weaving into each other) criss-crossing with the heart (yours, that is what he holds) and into the lines of fate (ours, always). _Here’s halfway._

And his hand cradles your cheek; your eyes meet his, tear-filled and determined, and the pieces fall into place. Yes, this is _here_ : where you are, where he is - and it is from here that you both will continue on.

It’s so quiet. It has been offered.

*~*~*~*~*

And later that evening, as you sit in the greenhouse and look through the glass to catch a glimpse of the stars you made long ago, he comes to you with steaming mugs of cocoa, as he does on these cold nights, and the mugs are not good as new. Pieces fit somehow with thin rivers of gold in between, like ichor, like serpentine eyes just peeking behind dark glass, like sunlight on hair at a garden wall long ago. Porcelain entwined with obsidian and bound with gold; white feathers linked with black, no traces of miracles on the ceramic surface but only fingerprints of willing service and silent love, keeping the pieces as one, imperfect and whole and together and _here._

It’s so quiet. It has been made anew.

*~*~*~*~*

**Author's Note:**

> Title was inspired by the song “By My Side”, from the musical _Godspell_. Give it a listen; it’s an unusual and lonely and beautiful piece.
> 
> It’s been a while since I’ve written a story in second person POV, so please forgive me if it still feels a bit clunky. This was less got-this-down writing and more let’s-try-out-this-way writing.
> 
> Thanks for dropping by!


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